


Common Threads

by WearingOutWinter



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Evil Plotting, F/F, Gen, Humor, Magister, Megalomania, POV character is notable for her lack of game, POV character thinks she has game, Tevinter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 11:28:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2346851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WearingOutWinter/pseuds/WearingOutWinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A power-hungry Tevinter magister (really, is there any other kind?) delves into the histories of the Hero of Fereldan and the Champion of Kirkwall, hoping to unlock the secrets of their power and influence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Common Threads

Octavia Graccha, magister of Tevinter, ground the heels of her palms into her eyes. There had to be a commonality, a key, a _catch_ , but she just couldn't see it. A landscape of papers lay scattered across her desk, hills and valleys of documents staring sullenly back at her. She had already burned three candles down poring fruitlessly over them, and she was still no closer to her goal. Graccha hissed in frustration, running her hands over the scholarly detritus, fingers catching on the rough paper. There were two complete biographies, numerous official reports, several compendiums of local gossip, and a vast number of letters all lost, copied, or stolen. It all added up to something, she was sure. She was just damned if she knew what. With a sigh, she picked up a letter she had already read a dozen times at least.

_The Hero of Fereldan was in attendance, of course, along with her companion, a red-haired, Orlesian woman of fetching appearance and lovely voice. I did my best to learn what circumstances drew them together, as my sister in Redcliffe writes to me constantly bemoaning the difficulty of meeting eligible women, but was sadly unable to..._

Graccha tossed the paper back down, where it balanced for a moment on the peak of the largest pile before sliding down into anonymity between a pair of heavy ledgers. There was nothing new there. Idly, Graccha picked up another letter, one that concerned her other subject.

_Arrived in Kirkwall to find it every bit as dismal as Geoffrey said. The streets are filthy, the guards unpleasant, and the nobles are dreadfully dull. The only interesting one of the bunch is this Champion, a woman called Hawke. Imagine my surprise to learn that she's nothing but an upjumped Fereldan peasant (!) who is known to keep company with an elf woman from the Kirkwall alienage (!!) and even let's the knife-ear live in her manor in High Town (!!!). What is it about this city that makes everyone here so mad? I hope to conclude our business here and return to Antiva before...”_

The magister frowned as she let the letter flutter from her hand. She had here the entire history, or near enough, of the two women who had turned the world upside down in the past few years. The two who had shaken Thedas to its foundations, who caused the lives of everyone they met to bend around themselves. And all she wanted was the secret of their power, so she could reshape the world in her own image. Was that too much to ask?

As much as she studied, she could find no commonality. No plausible source of their incredible talent and influence. Graccha sighed. Perhaps she should attempt to arrange meeting with one of their consorts. Perhaps the women they loved could provide greater insight into their gifts. Graccha blinked. The women they loved...

Both the Grey Warden who ended the Blight and Hawke had taken other women to their beds. Could it be that simple? On an impulse, Graccha reached out and tugged the bell rope that hung beside her desk. Her manor house was too large for her to actually hear the chime in response, but a few moments later, light footfalls could be heard on the stairs. The door to her chambers swung silently, silhouetting a slender figure against the lamps in the hall.

“You needed me, Mistress?”

The magister turned in her chair, a slow smile creeping across her lips.

“Yes,” she said slowly, “Yes, I rather think I do. Come here, please.”

Her apprentice stepped into the room, head bowed differentially. Deyla was an elf, with dark skin, black hair, and deep yellow eyes. Her father had been a slave, freed by the elder Graccha in his will, and it had been Octavia's duty instruct his child when she showed magical aptitude. Up until that point, the magister had been concerned only that her apprentice followed orders, learned quickly, and displayed the basic level of cunning necessary to avoid being eaten alive and wasting all of Graccha's hard work. But, looking at her now, the magister decided her apprentice was rather attractive, in a quiet, wide-eyed sort of way. She beckoned her apprentice closer.

“I was just thinking,” she said, and hesitated.

Unlike many of her fellow magisters, Graccha never deigned to couple with slaves. She preferred to trawl among the Imperium's lordlings, those petty fools with the requisite trickle of magical talent to elevate them, however fractionally, above the rabble. They bathed regularly, dressed well, and were entirely disposable. They were also so overawed to be the subject of a magister's attention that she never had refine her seduction techniques beyond “you, strip.” But Deyla was her apprentice, and that required a certain level of respect between the two of them. Well, Graccha was a damned magister. She could reduce armored warriors to piles of ash with a wave of her hand. Surely, getting a woman to fall in love with her would be simplicity itself.

“I was just thinking,” Graccha said, more confidently, “how very lovely you look today.”

Deyla blinked.

“Mistress?”

“Yes, very lovely indeed, with your hair the color of raven wings, and eyes the color of...” Graccha hesitated. “Sunsets.”

Deyla blinked again, and slowly raised a hand to Graccha's cheek. The magister flushed with triumph, and waited for the elf woman to be overcome by her passion for her. Deyla, staring deep into her mistress's eyes, moved her hand from Graccha's cheek to her forehead, pressing the back of her hand to the skin there.

“You don't feel fevered.”

Graccha blinked, and opened her mouth to protest, but paused when Deyla's hand moved again, slim fingers brushing the magister's long hair away from her neck.

“It doesn't look like anyone has taken your blood,” the elf went on doubtfully.

“I'm _not—_ ” Graccha began, but Deyla had the gall to _shush_ her.

“Shh...” The elf placed a finger on her mistress's lips. “I know your not yourself. I believe you to be under some kind of control or compulsion, but it might not be blood magic.”

Deyla chewed her lip as Graccha frowned.

“I am _not_ unwell," she insisted indignantly. "I just wanted to tell that you're quite beautiful and also that—”

“Oh, I know!” Deyla snapped her fingers, interrupting her mistress again. “Perhaps it's a drug! I was just researching something from the Creation school to purge toxins from the body!”

She patted Graccha gingerly on the shoulder.

“Stay calm, Mistress. I'll have this solved in no time.”

Then she was gone, pelting out of the room and down the stairs with considerably more noise than she had ascended them. Graccha threw herself back into her chair, disconsolately. Well, that had been an utter disaster. Even if her apprentice had let her get a word in edgewise, she hadn't seemed particularly seduced. She'd have to try again. Graccha drummed to her fingers on her desk. Perhaps tomorrow she would go to the market district. There was an Orlesian confectioner's there that made the most delectable candies, all delicate sugar etchings and gold foil wrappings. A gift of some of their finest creations, and perhaps some fresh-cut flowers, and Deyla would melt in her hands. Graccha would secure her love easily.

And then, she would be invincible.

 


End file.
